before you order any, I spent ages checking through images to find parti colour hose for late 15thc and had real problems finding any. As a result I've stopped wearing the ones I had. I found one picture with an incredibly posh bloke wearing some, but that was it.

Very scarce pre-1480 or so, a fair few French pics of that era plus some Italians, but foppish all the same. I shall be writing to our good king to issue a new edict regarding such outrageous items of clothing. Trouble with wearing something so obviously of a time is you can't use it backwards in time to say 1455, sounds obvious but we have all seen it.

There's a great outfit, parti hose, parti doublet the other way on and even parti hose in the illustrations of Cleriadus et meliadice circa 1470. might be more than one actualy. It's in Richard Britnells 'Daily life in the Late middle ages'.

Will scan it if anyone's interested.

Dave

Find time in every day to look at your life and say; 'Well, it could be worse'

There was a post on the specific history thread for 1100-1500 that went into quite a lot of depth on this. The general conclusion was that people felt bi-parti hose were worn by "bloody forreeneers and poftas" which suits me fine as that is what I am trying to portray. Green and white bi-parti hose for instance was issued as livery by Antoine the Bastard of Burgundy and Florentine troops were issued with red and white bi-parti hose.

It was my belief that bi-coloured garments were predominantly a 14th century affair coming out of fashion by about 1420 in pretty much all of Northern Europe? Book is out of the house, so might be mistaken on the exact decade. Wallpaintings posted two posts earlier fit to that, btw.

Obviously the old exception is always visible on pictures, especially on nobles or other fancy folk I suppose. Very surprised about the mi-parti hose and doublet mentioned earlier, are you sure that this is past 1420? And not at a tournament or portraying a fool or something? If not, would be very interested indeed!

However, I concur that mi-parti hose come back into fashion particularly in Southern Germany and possibly Northern Italy (Tyrol) in the 1470's. Especially common being red-white and black-yellow. However, these would normally be worn with uni-coloured doublets.
Southern Germans also start finding slashes in coats fashionable in the same decade. Both features escalate ultimately in the famous Landsknecht-Look of the 16th century.
I don't have a clue to which extent this comeback of mi-parti clothing spreads through Europe (like Burgundy).

So far my knowledge from books. By no means a specialist, me! Happy to be corrected in the most devastating ways.

My apologies for picking this up again, but parti fashion genuinely interests me, as I own a parti silk doublet which I seek to justify a bit better.

As Britnell was mentioned twice, I got his book 2nd hand from Amazon. I belief you are both referring to the illustration from "Apollonius of Tyre", depicted on page 25, which appears to be NOT dated by the author. Albeit that given it was done by the same artist as the predominantly mentioned "Cleriadus and Meliadice", it is probably around the 1470's.

Re Cleriadus, Britnell mentions the inconsistency of the illustrations with the text, the former attempting to depict the extremely rich and extravagant characters described in the text in a very basic, common fashion. According to the author, the illustrator appeared to then enhance his basic images by using very unusual features of fashion. The picture from "Apollonius of Tyre" is used by the author as an illustration of even more unusual fashion for the time.

The mi parti figure is only visible from the back, wearing a parti hose, tabard and hat. It appears in a scene set at court (I think), with no other example of even remotely parti clothing in all other illustrations by the same author in the Bridnell book.
The author mentions the parti outfit as a "surprise" in the caption to the picture, and then talks about dresses of other figures in the picture which is the subject of the chapter.

Based on all this, it is my impression that the figures clothing is meant to depict a character of unusual status, most likely from an entertaining background.
Short - I would say this is a fool.

Andreas wrote:Based on all this, it is my impression that the figures clothing is meant to depict a character of unusual status, most likely from an entertaining background.Short - I would say this is a fool.

Well -- was he short? Because if he were merely short and wearing particolored garments that were otherwise unremarkable, then I'd say he was probably a fool of some sort; but from what I understand about what fools would typically wear, I'd still expect to see an unusually-constructed hood, probably with donkey-ears and/or a belled point.

Re Marcus: Nothing to do with you mate, am just interested in the general commonality of parti clothing in that period. If I was you and fancied parti hose, I would just go for it and when asked talk about German fashion.
I myself wear as said a parti doublet at times, which I kind of explain via the new fashion of parti hose in Germany and the upcoming 16th century fashion streaks.

Re Karen: Very fair point! After writing the previous text it kind of occured to me that actually I have not really a clue how a 15th century fool would actually exactly look like, and that it might just as well have been a servant or a musician. And no, he's normal sized and just wears a round brimmed felt hat thingie.

Livery in general I think is a different subject. Lots of mi-parti livery coats and bends and tabards around across the whole continent, clearly. The shepherd is interesting! Old livery coat or something? Fashion of the common man? Any suggestions?